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project 2025
The Trump Cadaver’s Latest Iran War
An array of special interests realized that they could make use of this blundering cadaver to ensure their ends were met. These special interests were extremely successful.
Mar 06, 2026
When people from abroad ask me what’s going on with President Donald Trump’s second term, I tell them that he is unlike other US presidents who were strongly influenced by special interests and big money. Instead, he is a charismatic cadaver that big moneyed and special interests have harvested, sometimes complementing each other but other times clashing with a base drive for power at the root of the corpse.
The Trump cadaver appears particularly conflicted in its peace rhetoric and its policies of militarism and war. His longtime campaign speeches of wanting to stop wars, to be the “peace candidate,” and his more recent infantile desire and arm-twisting to receive the Nobel Peace Prize stand in stark contrast to his record as president. During his first term, he amplified Barack Obama’s drone war, dropped a MOAB on Afghanistan in 2017, launched strikes on Syria, and had the top IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani assassinated just after New Year’s in 2020. Minus the assassination, this was well within the norm for the late 20th and early 21st century imperial presidency; suffice to say that first term Trump was not a peace president.
In his second term, Trump became a full-blown authoritarian war hawk while still claiming to be anti-war and an enabler of peace. Before the 2024 election, powerful interests, the military-industrial complex, the Israeli lobby, business interests, and the tech monopolists all made plans to harvest inside Trump should he get elected. This array of special interests realized that they could make use of this blundering cadaver to ensure their ends were met. These special interests were extremely successful.
Project 2025 came into being with the goal of tearing away the social safety net for Americans in its target of the “administrative state.” Trump claimed he had no idea about this project during the campaign, but, once in office, he instituted its policies and hired its authors. This project complemented the extremist right’s anti-immigrant agenda led by Stephen Miller. The results have been ugly: While food stamps have been cut and US citizens and residents from abroad were being gunned down in the streets, the military got half a trillion more dollars annually. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the private paramilitary, received eight times what it has historically at just over $80 billion.
There are no adults in the room to constrain cadaver Trump and his policies of internal and external mass violence, piracy, and war.
Some of the more absurd behavior that we’ve seen over the past year speaks to the forces within the Trump cadaver fighting it out within him. The creation of a Board of Peace for administering Gaza is antithetical to peace and justice. Its main goal is to serve the ultra elite in constructing luxury resorts and likely allow only the most obeisant Gazans to remain as servants to the wealthy. The Trump cadaver endlessly complained about not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize and then overthrew and kidnapped the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, to essentially loot the country’s oil. Trump deployed ceaseless rhetoric against the neocons but then fulfilling their wet dreams by attacking Iran's nuclear facilities with Israel in 2025 summer. Now, again with Israel, Trump has attacked Iran for no clear reason other than to ensure Israeli regional hegemony and that no country opposes the policies of US empire. In this sense, cadaver Trump has become not just a wannabe dictator of the US, but a wannabe dictator of the world. Clearly, after catering to some anti-war populist campaign rhetoric, the military-industrial complex and pro-Israeli interests took the cadaver by the reins.
As of this writing, there have been 1,230 Iranians killed, including 180 from a girls’ school—a likely war crime. Europe’s most powerful countries, Germany, France, and Great Britain, issued a statement in response to the conflict. Rather than condemning the aggression of an out-of-control empire that no longer chooses to rationalize its mass violence, they condemned the Iranians for responding to the onslaught of Israeli and US attacks. As if Iran should just sit on its knees and get pummeled. It seems as if Trump’s threats of tariffs and taking over Greenland have turned these European leaders into puppets. It calls to mind the “protesters” calling for the shah of Iran to be reinstituted. As if the solution of Iran’s independence and intransigence to the US world order is to have another puppet rule Iran, just like the last one, Reza Pahlavi. It was this last shah who was likely responsible for more deaths of Iranian protesters than recent Iranian government crackdowns.
Today the empire no longer tries to rationalize its wars or pretends to adhere to international law. It is rather an empire gone mad: a strange mix of Viking-era looting and rampage with might-is-right 19th century European colonialism, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio cleverly paid homage to at the Munich Security Conference.
There are no adults in the room to constrain cadaver Trump and his policies of internal and external mass violence, piracy, and war. The leading Democrats in Congress have offered tepid criticism of the latest Iran War only on procedural grounds. That leaves it up to the people, progressives, and burgeoning anti-war sentiment on the right to put an end to these US-generated foreign bloodbaths. And to prevent the continuous rise of inclinations of mass destruction within the Trump cadaver once and for all.
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When Racism Becomes Spectacle: Distraction in an Age of Climate Crisis
In the end, the question is not whether a single post is offensive—it is whether we allow cycles of warranted outrage to consume the very attention required for collective survival.
Feb 07, 2026
The recent posted image by President Donald Trump depicting the Obamas as primates is unsurprising. This image represents what is believed, what is undoubtedly said behind closed doors. What remains unreal to me is that a sitting president flagrantly posted this. If the Republican Party does not denounce this, they are proclaiming what they truly value. Perhaps that's just as well: The racism has truly not been covert for some time. For so many, this is just another day at the office—another way racist ideology within the Republican Party asserts itself. In posting this, one must question whether the president is unhinged and strategic at the same time. I believe that, surely, he is laughing about just how much he is able to get away with, as befits his temperament and historically documented pattern of behavior.
Already, the White House defends the indefensible: White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has publicly defended the president’s sharing of the video by framing it as a meme inspired by The Lion King—saying critics should stop what she calls “fake outrage” and focus on more important issues. The White House has repeatedly expressed that the imagery was taken from an internet meme meant to depict the president as “King of the Jungle” and Democrats as animal characters, not intended as racist content.
This disgusting portrayal is distraction while simultaneously challenging the masses to disbelieve what they see with their own eyes. Fascist politics often relies on propaganda and media spectacle to distract the public, undermine shared reality, and redirect attention away from policy consequences toward emotionally charged narratives (Stanley, 2018). This pushes any thinking person to ask, about what are the masses being distracted?
Advancements to curtail Immigration and Customs Enforcement seems the most apt and logical answer. Indeed, politicians must remain steadfast and resolved in their efforts to contain ICE. However, as an education environmental researcher, I am convicted to take a step back to examine the broader landscape and the long-term trends.
If distraction is the strategy, then sustained attention is resistance.
The planetary boundaries framework reminds us that Earth’s stability is shaped by interconnected systems—climate, biodiversity, water, land, and chemical cycles—whose disruption increases the risk of large-scale ecological destabilization. Seen in this light, the severe and lingering cold snaps recently experienced in the US Northeast do not contradict global warming but rather illustrate the volatility of a climate system pushed beyond its historical range of variability. As scientists note, destabilizing the climate system can intensify extremes across seasons, producing not only heatwaves but also disrupted jet streams, polar air incursions, and unusual persistence of cold events. Situating a regional cold spell within this broader planetary context reframes it from an isolated anomaly to a symptom of systemic strain: local weather variability unfolding against a backdrop of transgressed ecological limits. In other words, the discomfort and disruption of a harsh winter can be read as a lived reminder that Earth’s regulatory systems are under pressure, and that climatic instability—whether expressed as heat, cold, drought, or flood—is part of the same planetary story.
Despite overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real and accelerating, the current White House under President Trump has repeatedly signaled opposition to aggressive climate mitigation, undercutting efforts to address the crisis while publicly downplaying its urgency. At the United Nations General Assembly in September 2025, Trump referred to climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” dismissing expert predictions and climate science in broad terms even as global averages continue to rise and impacts intensify. Domestically, his administration has pursued policies that limit federal engagement in climate leadership—such as rescinding foundational greenhouse gas regulations by challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific endangerment finding and refusing to send senior officials to the COP30 climate summit—and rolling back environmental protections while promoting expanded fossil fuel extraction.
These actions illustrate a pattern of rhetoric and policymaking that accepts the existence of environmental change but rejects concerted governmental action to confront the climate crisis at the scale scientists say is necessary.
Unchecked climate change is already reshaping Earth’s systems in ways that pose severe risks to human and ecological well-being, often in counterintuitive ways. In the northeastern United States, unseasonably severe cold spells have contributed to fatalities and widespread disruption, reflecting how a destabilized climate system can produce more extreme and erratic weather patterns even as the planet warms overall. Scientific assessments show that critical components of the climate system—such as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a major ocean current system that redistributes heat around the globe—are showing signs of disruption associated with warming and freshwater influx from melting ice, with potential large-scale impacts on regional climates, precipitation patterns, and food security if thresholds are crossed. Researchers warn that such a weakening of ocean currents could intensify weather extremes and disrupt agricultural systems and ecosystems worldwide, compounding other alarming indicators like mass species loss and coral reef die-off under thermal stress.
Reflecting the convergence of climate change, geopolitical tension, and emerging technological risks, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved the symbolic Doomsday Clock closer to midnight than at any point in its history, signaling growing vulnerability to existential threats driven by human actions and inaction. As of the latest update, the clock stood at a historically high proximity to midnight—indicating an elevated sense of global peril tied in part to the accelerating impacts of climate change alongside nuclear and disruptive technologies—underscoring that societies worldwide have not yet mounted an adequate policy or governance response to the mounting evidence of planetary destabilization.
Far from being speculative or alarmist rhetoric, these warnings are grounded in measurable scientific trends that reveal cascading risks to ecosystems and societies, even as elites prepare for worst-case futures: Reports describe wealthy investors and defense planners expanding private bunkers and survival retreats in anticipation of climatic and geopolitical disruption, while the broader public’s attention is often diverted to the latest political scandal rather than sustained policy engagement with structural risks.
There is circumstantial evidence that the current White House is using distraction as a communication strategy, one consistent with well-studied political diversion tactics, but there is no direct proof that this is an intentionally orchestrated White House policy without formal investigation. Analysts and critics of Project 2025—the extensive conservative policy blueprint authored by the Heritage Foundation and many associates of this administration—have raised alarms about proposals that would restructure media oversight, diminish independent journalism, and alter technology and communications policies in ways that could reduce scrutiny of executive power, a move some see as creating fertile terrain for distraction over accountability.
Political commentators have documented how sensational statements and provocative posts often dominate headlines at the expense of in-depth coverage of systemic risks like climate change or immigration enforcement priorities, consistent with agenda-setting research showing how political actors can shift public attention.
Additionally, scholars studying messaging patterns around scandals suggest that shifts in provocative communications often occur simultaneously with increased media focus on crisis narratives, although establishing intentional coordination by an administration would require formal oversight or committee inquiry, not journalistic inference alone. In short, critics interpret these developments as strategic distraction tactics, but distinguishing intent from effect is a matter for official investigation and evidence beyond public reporting.
In the end, the question is not whether a single post is offensive—it is whether we allow cycles of warranted outrage to consume the very attention required for collective survival. Racism must be named and opposed wherever it appears, especially when amplified by the highest office, but we must also recognize when spectacle functions to fracture public focus. The climate crisis does not pause for political theater, nor do ecological thresholds wait for electoral cycles. If distraction is the strategy, then sustained attention is resistance. The work before us is to hold moral clarity and planetary reality together, refusing to let either be eclipsed by the churn of the news cycle, and insisting that democratic accountability includes safeguarding the conditions for life itself.
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New Project 2025-Backed Trump Rule Guts Protections for 50,000 Federal Workers
“This rule is a direct assault on a professional, nonpartisan, merit-based civil service and the government services the American people rely on every day," said one critic.
Feb 05, 2026
The Trump administration on Thursday finalized a major civil service rule change that makes it easier to fire certain federal employees and replace them with political loyalists—a move that critics say increases the likelihood of abuse of power.
The new policy at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM)—the federal government's independent central human resources agency—reclassifies tens of thousands of federal workers as "policy/career," making them effectively at-will employees and easier to terminate.
The policy, known as Schedule F, was first proposed by President Donald Trump during his first term, which expired before he could fully implement it. Former President Joe Biden rescinded the policy, but Trump revived it on his first day back in office in January 2025, despite warnings from experts who say it is illegal.
Schedule F is one of the policies recommended in Project 2025, the far-right initiative to boost the power of the presidency and purge the federal civil service.
OPM estimates that around 2% of the federal workforce, or approximately 50,000 employees, will be affected by the rule change, which the agency said is aimed at "strengthening accountability, improving performance, and reinforcing a merit-based federal workforce."
Scott Kupor, who heads the OPM, said in a statement that the rule change “restores a basic principle of democratic governance: Those entrusted with shaping and executing policy must be accountable for results.”
“This rule preserves merit-based hiring, veterans’ preference, and whistle-blower protections while ensuring senior career officials responsible for advancing President Trump’s agenda can be held to the same performance expectations that exist throughout much of the American work force," he added.
However, critics are sounding the alarm over parts of the new policy, including a provision allowing agencies to fire employees who "obstruct the democratic process by intentionally subverting presidential directives."
“This rule is a direct assault on a professional, nonpartisan, merit-based civil service and the government services the American people rely on every day,” American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) national president Everett Kelley said in a statement.
“When people see turmoil and controversy in Washington, they don’t ask for more politics in government, they ask for competence and professionalism," Kelley continued. "OPM is doing the opposite. They’re rebranding career public servants as ‘policy’ employees, silencing whistleblowers, and replacing competent professionals with political flunkies without any neutral, independent protections against politicization and arbitrary abuse of power.”
“A professional civil service means nurses and doctors can advocate for patient safety, inspectors can report violations, cybersecurity experts can warn about threats, and benefits specialists can tell the truth about what it takes to deliver services—without worrying they’ll be punished for it,” Kelley argued.
“Turning tens or maybe hundreds thousands of these professionals into at-will employees doesn’t make government more accountable," he added. "It makes it more vulnerable to pressure, retaliation, and political interference, which is exactly the opposite of what the public is asking for right now.”
Democracy Forward, which represents AFGE and another public sector union in a lawsuit challenging Trump's revival of Schedule F, said in a statement Thursday, "The final rule continues to weaken more than a century of bipartisan civil service protections by allowing the administration to remove experienced, nonpolitical federal employees at will while stripping away civil service protections, meaningful oversight, and appeal rights."
"Existing law already provides mechanisms to address employee misconduct," the group added. "This rule is not about accountability, but about politicization."
The Trump-Vance admin is choosing to ignore countless concerns from the American public in order to implement a cornerstone of Project 2025 – an unlawful effort to weaken and politicize the nonpartisan civil service through regulation. To that we say: we will see you in court.
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— Democracy Forward (@democracyforward.org) February 5, 2026 at 7:06 AM
Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman said that "this proposal was wrong when it was outlined in Project 2025, wrong when the president issued an executive order, and it remains wrong now... This is a deliberate attempt to do through regulation what the law does not allow—strip public servants of their rights and make it easier to fire them for political reasons and harm the American people through doing so."
"We have successfully fought this kind of power grab before, and we will fight this again," Perryman vowed. "We will return to court to stop this unlawful rule and will use every legal tool available to hold this administration accountable to the people.”
On the legislative front, US Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and the late Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.) last year reintroduced the Save the Civil Service Act, which aims "to protect the federal workforce from politicization and political manipulation."
“The civil servants who make up our federal workforce are the engine that keeps our federal government running,” Connolly, who died last May of cancer, said at the time. “They are our country’s greatest asset. We rely on their experience and expertise to provide every basic government service—from delivering the mail to helping families in the wake of natural disasters."
Connolly added that Trump's push to "remove qualified experts and replace them with political loyalists is a direct threat to our national security and our government’s ability to function the way the American people expect it to."
"It threatens to create a system wherein benefits and services are delivered based on the politics, not the needs, of the recipient," he added. "Expertise, not political fealty, must define our civil service.”
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